Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

17 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Our BBQ birthday bash is due to start in  half an hour so we now have torrential rain, hailstones, thunder and lightning. 
Couldn’t have asked for more…. except snow possibly?  😂

Aditi decided she would do the weeding and grass cutting before the forecast rain. It started just as she got the mower and tools out. They were all put away. It is sunny now. Hope your weather improves too!

[monkeysarefun]

25 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

You need Wi-Fi connected bulbs! Perhaps Amazon will suggest them to you instead of musical instruments. 

I bought a heap of  them when they were on sale recently for half price at Woolies. They have made my life incredibly better because I no longer have to turn the lights off at the switch, I just have to yell "HEY GOOGLE TURN THE LIGHTS OFF.....TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!!!!" enough times until they do my bidding . Perhaps they are not Australian accent compliant . 

 

It reminds me of my 2007 Mondeo, built in Belgium and the voice  response    was some posh  pommy chick   - I was like  "Phone home!" and she would respond with  "Heat on FULL!" and it would melt my eyebrows.  We did not get on.

Edited August 26, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Tony_S]

Just now, monkeysarefun said:

I bought a heap of  them when they were on sale recently for half price at Woolies. They have made my life incredibly better because I no longer have to turn the lights off at the switch, I just have to yell "HEY GOOGLE TURN THE LIGHTS OFF.....TURN THE LIGHTS OFF!!!!" enough times until they do my bidding . Perhaps they are not Australian accent compliant . 

 

It reminds me of my 2007 Mondeo, built in Belgium and the voice  response    was some posh  pommy chick   - I was like  "Phone home!" and she would respond with  "Fan on FULL!" and it would melt my eyebrows.  We did not get on.

We never quite worked out what put our sat nav in to diagnostic mode just as we approached a complicated junction in Texas. I didn’t even know it was voice control

ed until then.  It must have been something my son said as his accent was a bit mid Atlantic at that time. 
As for the lounge lights we have programmed them to come on 10 minutes before sunset and turn off at 11pm. 

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Perhaps they are not Australian accent compliant . 

 

Siri on my iPad is an Irish male voice but it seems to accept my accent which is probably influenced by years in Essex. We don’t really use voice control as Aditi has suspicions about how much we are being listened to. 

[TheQ]

There are always the towns of Shitterton, Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton, Sixpenny Handley, Middle and Nether Wallop,  plus there the roads

Backside Lane, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN4

Dick Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH9 

Assloss Road, Kilmarnock, Scotland, KA3   

Semicock Road, Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, BT53

Trailcock Road, Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, BT38

Slack Bottom, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7

Lickers Lane, Prescot, Lancashire, L35

Spanker Lane, Belpher, Derbyshire, DE56

Grope Lane, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1

Hardon Road, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV4

Minge Lane, Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire WR8

Fanny Street, Cardiff, Wales CF24

Court Cocking, St. Ives, Cornwall, TR26

Slaparse Lane, Exeter, Devon, EX52

Cock-A-Dobby, Sandhurst, Berkshire, GU47

Crotch Crescent, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX3

Titty Ho, Raunds, Northamptonshire, NN9

Hooker Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR7

Butthole Lane, Shepshed, Leicestershire, LE12

Willey Lane, Newthorpe, Nottinghamshire, NG16

Edited August 26, 2023 by TheQ

[TheQ]

I fell asleep after doing some jungle clearance, SWMBO decided to take Ben for his long walk, he went out of the gate but then refused to go any further. He has never done that before, except when frightened by gunfire.

So they came back in, Ben sat next to me.

During the time they were out, I received a phone call, my father has died, the last of the 5 brothers.

 

Some time after Ben insisted on taking me for a maximum length walk... He didn't leave my side...

[monkeysarefun]

42 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Our BBQ birthday bash is due to start in  half an hour so we now have torrential rain, hailstones, thunder and lightning. 
Couldn’t have asked for more…. except snow possibly?  😂

Ive just checked the UK live weather cam for your area, and its showing this.

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[The White Rabbit]

Someone I went to school with lived in D*ck Lane (Cowling). 

 

And IIRC, Jasper Carrott said he lived in Shaftmore Lane, Acocks Green. 

 

A few years ago I planned to move house - it didn't happen for various reasons but the place we hoped to move to had an address of No * Bare Rhydding. (One of those places with a name or number and a village name rather than the traditional number thingummy, road name, village etc.). My partner (in crime?) wanted to call the house 'Godiva Cottage'. 

[The White Rabbit]

5 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I fell asleep after doing some jungle clearance, SWMBO decided to take Ben for his long walk, he went out of the gate but then refused to go any further. He has never done that before, except when frightened by gunfire.

So they came back in, Ben sat next to me.

During the time they were out, I received a phone call, my father has died, the last of the 5 brothers.

 

Some time after Ben insisted on taking me for a maximum length walk... He didn't leave my side...

 

I'm very sorry to hear that, my condolences. 

 

It can be strange how animals appear to have a sixth sense or ESP, sometimes they pick up on (to human senses) imperceptible body language cues but there are some - such as not wanting to go beyond the gate - which are very hard to explain. 

[Tony_S]

15 minutes ago, TheQ said:

During the time they were out, I received a phone call, my father has died, the last of the 5 brothers.

I am really sorry to learn of your news. Condolences. 
Tony

[PhilJ W]

27 minutes ago, TheQ said:

There are always the towns of Shitterton, Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton, Sixpenny Handley, Middle and Nether Wallop,  plus there the roads

Backside Lane, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN4

Dick Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH9 

Assloss Road, Kilmarnock, Scotland, KA3   

Semicock Road, Ballymoney, Northern Ireland, BT53

Trailcock Road, Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, BT38

Slack Bottom, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7

Lickers Lane, Prescot, Lancashire, L35

Spanker Lane, Belpher, Derbyshire, DE56

Grope Lane, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1

Hardon Road, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV4

Minge Lane, Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire WR8

Fanny Street, Cardiff, Wales CF24

Court Cocking, St. Ives, Cornwall, TR26

Slaparse Lane, Exeter, Devon, EX52

Cock-A-Dobby, Sandhurst, Berkshire, GU47

Crotch Crescent, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX3

Titty Ho, Raunds, Northamptonshire, NN9

Hooker Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR7

Butthole Lane, Shepshed, Leicestershire, LE12

Willey Lane, Newthorpe, Nottinghamshire, NG16

A lot of those names indicate a towns former red light district.

[Coombe Barton]

18 minutes ago, TheQ said:

During the time they were out, I received a phone call, my father has died, the last of the 5 brothers.

Really sorry to hear this, Q - deepest sympathies.

[DaveF]

Very sorry to hear your sad news Q.

 

David

[petethemole]

TheQ, Sorry to learn about your Father, my condolences.

[DaveF]

Thinking about HR.

 

When I was teaching we had almost 400 on the payroll (we had around 2.200 pupils on roll and over 150 teachers at the time) and we had 2 HR people after we left the control of the local council.  I am afraid they never got very far with me as one of my jobs was to determine how many people we needed to employ as teachers - and they couldn't question that as you have to have enough teachers to teach all the pupils.  Later on after I retired from teaching and worked as an IT consultant I retained the part of my job relating to working out staffing needs.

 

To start with they got upset that I did most of my work at home but the senior management team ended up telling them that was how I worked.

 

Appraisal was fun - I was supposed to set targets to improve what I did, as everyone was supposed to.  On day I got cross and pointed out that I had recommended the right number of staff, the finances worked and the timetable worked, so what could change.  After that I was left well alone.

 

I did enjoy my final part time day when I handed in my keys.  Apparently there was no record of which keys I had so HR were very surprised when I handed in a set of keys and master keys to every room in the buildings.  It then took almost 6 months for them to close down my work e mail account.  I later heard it was left in case anyone needed to still contact me for advice.

 

David

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

 Payroll department gave me the best advice. 

Jamie

We often had to sort out HR's cack ups. Mostly because they relied to much on what was written in a manual, which is no substitute for experience. In other cases some of HR were 'unavailable' and I had to do their work for them. In one case a young woman seven months pregnant had suffered a massive brain haemorrhage and was actually brain dead but she was kept on life support until her baby could be delivered. HR then sent her a letter outlining her options as she was not returning to work. I had to deal with the distraught husband and parents as the HR attitude was to wash their hands of the matter. I did later get a thank you letter from the lady's mother for all my help.

[PhilJ W]

40 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I fell asleep after doing some jungle clearance, SWMBO decided to take Ben for his long walk, he went out of the gate but then refused to go any further. He has never done that before, except when frightened by gunfire.

So they came back in, Ben sat next to me.

During the time they were out, I received a phone call, my father has died, the last of the 5 brothers.

 

Some time after Ben insisted on taking me for a maximum length walk... He didn't leave my side...

Condolences on your loss. 

[Dave Hunt]

Many condolences Q. Having gonr through the same thing just over a year ago I can empathise.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

3 hours ago, PupCam said:

There are relatively few I would guess who like me have pretty much experienced, to a lesser or greater extent, pretty much all of the (technical) aspects involved in making things fly through the air, arrive at a pre-determined specified location and produce a particular effect.  

 

It's dead easy. You point at the desired thing and pull the trigger. There's a loud whoosh from somewhere underneath and Bob's yer uncle. Job done.

 

Dave

[polybear]

VVVSBT's to The Q, Mrs. Q and Ben - who somehow knew that "something was up" even before anyone else....

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. The builder working next door had packed up at lunchtime and won't be back until Monday. Just as well really as we've just had a downpour and the machinery going back and forth across my back garden would have turned it into a quagmire. The builder has said he will restore the lawn (new topsoil and reseeded) when he has finished. I was tempted to ask where does he expected to get the (replacement) weeds from. 

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Probably would have shortened it to Llanfairarg. 

 

....or Chumley

[jamie92208]

@The Q my condolences and thoughts to you and your Mrs at this time.   As to Ben's 6th sense, I've heard of such things in animals.   One of my first landlords had been a miner and told a tale of his Pony refusing to move one day for no apparent reason.   Shortly afterwards there was a roof collapse somewhere ahead.  

 

Jamie

[polybear]

6 hours ago, Grizz said:

On one particular occasion, following a lost time injury to a colleague in the work place, I asked numerous times for HR to clarify the company’s legal position when set against the relevant UK employment law. Eventually via my boss I was accused of being a ‘disruptive element’ and further more  of being ‘Unhelpful’ and ‘Off Message’…..WTF. From that day onwards I suspect that my HR file had a note on it. Something like …..’Warning - ’Grizz does not play well with others’.

 

Bear recalls one time when one of the Guys fell down a stairway on a Warship (most definitely not recommended); his Boss reported it to Occy Health (now part of HR) and was immediately summoned to see them - at that point the Guy's injuries were unknown.

Anyway, the Boss was expecting OH to tell him all the things that were available to support the injured party, such as getting his SWMBO the 100 miles to be with him - as well as accommodation etc.  Wrong.

Instead he was giving a 30 minute lecture on what he could say/mustn't say/can do/can't do etc. etc. in order to minimise the risk of liability on The Great Empire.  What B'sterds.

 

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

When the oil company that  I worked for in the 80's and 90's  was taken over by a corporate raider, stripped of its assets and the staff made let go, the legal  redundancy payment that the raiders were obliged to pay was one months pay. However our HR department, in conjunction with the Financial manager used some kind of Jedi mind trick to convince them that they needed to pay us one months pay.......per year of employment.

 

So I got 13 months pay, all thanks to HR. 

 

Cynical Bear suspects that HR & the FM were being sh1t on as well so were out to get their own back.

 

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Even now, as a sub-contractor to a contractor, the parent company -  which is a UK defence company that has a TLA that starts with a B and ends with an E -  has an HR department that  has treated us contractors just like permanent employees, to the point of paying for us to  work from home every second day  throughout all  of lockdown 2021, despite it being obvious to them  that we could not  actually do any useful work because the network we do our work on is not connected to the internet and therefore not accessible from home!  Being contract staff they could have just pulled the "No work - no pay!" trick, but to their credit they didn'tand we got paid our full pay.

 

 

Bear (and Puppers) just happen to know that very company.....

Are the Contractors considered "scarce skills" by any chance?  If so then I suspect they were very aware that when (hopefully) things started returning to normal they didn't want to be left without those skills.  And you can bet the tab for sitting at home ended up being paid by the Oz Government....

 

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

And I am able to smile sweetly  to myself when the boss that I fell out with was sacked as a Deputy Chief Co for corruption and nepotism.

 

Oh I do hope he lost his pension as a result?

 

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I smiled even more sweetly when he later, whilst drunk, fell down some airplane steps and had to spend 6 months flat on his back in hospital whilst a broken back healed.  Schadenfreude comes to mind. 

 

Jamie

 

Can Bear borrow your Voodoo Doll?

[southern42]

' afternoon all from red dragon land.

A lot of chuckinitdarn, this morning. Pine cone pundits are pronouncing dry and sunshine for this afternoon. They had better be right cos I have just put washing out despite there being some awfully dark clouds out there, a bit of sun now and again, though.

 

A lot of short toot on the flute sessions today, mostly a mixture of playing* along with the video and having a bash for real. It seems to have done the job as I worked out the next lot of new twiddly bits...in the end...one of which was a 4-note slide - but I did it! Something new on my life-time's worth of musical-technicalities-not-been-able-to-do-before. Anyway, it made me feel chuffed, not at my playing, but at the sound of it that I can now enjoy. A bit of confidence regained. 

 

*Our flutes are in different keys, so I just play the fingering and do the tune in my head.

 

....awhile later.

Sun out - and a bit of blue sky - but still a bit too wet to do any (proper) G word though I might pop out and dead head some thugs before they go to seed.

 

As I am staring at a muganothingness, I think I shall go and make a mugasomethingness.

 

Take care. Be good. Be hopeful.

Polly